Protocols
by OPYKJ
Summary: Years in the Delta Quadrant have taken their toll on Voyager and the relation between the Captain and her crew are at breaking point. Against her First Officer advice, Janeway decides to use a shortcut to avoid crossing into Borg territory, but even she cannot control everything. Dark.


**Protocols**

The Captain appears on the bridge minutes before she and the Prime Minister of the Kjeas Empire are to finalise the negotiations that will allow Voyager to cross this region of space. She is cutting it very close. According to the meticulous timetable the Kjeas have imposed on us, she should have been back on board an hour ago.  
She does not provide any explanations. I don't ask.

"How long, Commander?"  
"Five minutes," I answer.  
She puts a stray hair back in line. A last tug at what looks like a newly replicated jacket. She is her usual self: in control.  
The meeting with the Kjeas Under Secretary must have gone well. It had been her decision from the beginning to go through with the whole Kjeas rigmarole so I know there will be no surprises even if I disagreed from the start.

Over the past year, we have met our share of hostile, xenophobic and powerful species as we plunge inexorably amidst a densely populated section of the Delta Quadrant. We have become experts at trading our way through, stroking egos if it gives us easier passage or blasting the opposition, the latter not too often as we most frequently than not find ourselves outgunned and outraced.  
A single ship does not have much to offer and we are getting desperate as we miserly conserve all the dilithium we can. There is no more investigating every single space anomaly or going on shore leave. Half of the decks are no go-zones and the crew are bunking together in shared quarters. Holodeck time and evening dinners have been off the menu for months.  
What is there to talk about anyway?

We have set aside our high principles, measuring our help to other less fortunate than us by the amount of tradeable resources we will get in return. Only Starfleet ship protocols rule us now. The Captain gives the orders and we obey. She demands more from her senior officers and in turn we are hard on the crew, all in the name of reaching home faster. That's the only thing that counts. At least for her. Frankly, I wonder why we are so bent in getting back to the Alpha Quadrant because there isn't much difference between this ship and a Federation prison. Our naïve enthusiasm of so long ago has well and truly disappeared and I hardly remember the man I was then.  
Nevertheless, the Captain presses on and we still follow in her wake.

"Four minutes."  
As the Kjeas protocol asks, all of us subalterns are seated at our consoles. The bridge is impeccable, our uniforms shiny. We are ready.

Weaving our way through territories up to three times the size of the Federation, we heard about the Borg and the vast space they hold right across the most direct route back home. Our choices were clear: go through, go around, or use the Kjeas short cut.  
The Kjeas Empire looks like an elongated needle going straight through Borg territory. Faced with a Borg onslaught three hundred years earlier, their society found an original solution to avoid being assimilated: they regressed to a pre-warp level of technology. The Borg lost interest when there were richer pickings elsewhere and the Kjeas territory remained intact, governed and guarded by a bureaucratic oligarchy allowed to do as it wants as long as the plebeians are kept safe from assimilation.

Three minutes.  
The Captain could see only one path, the shortest one, so we contacted the Kjeas despite their infamous reputation which makes the Kazons look like forest monks in comparison. They are unscrupulous bullies, using their strategic location to harass all who request passage through their territory. If like us you don't have much to trade, the price of passage is to play their little games of intimidation. The Kjeas Commissioner at the border station made it clear from the start: their rules or we can always take the alternative route. The Captain chose their ways.  
Who was I to question her decision? Her words.

I have been the one running around making sure all was done to their satisfaction. I rallied the troops, handled B'Elanna, did the pre-inspections, triple-checked all the documentation. I can recite the ship's statistics in my sleep.  
The Captain verified everything once more and then attended the twice a day compulsory meetings with the Kjeas Commissioner. At the end of each meeting, she told us what else needed to be provided and I run around again like a well-trained sheepdog.  
In between their demands for documentation control, character references, triplicate cargo manifests, duplicate weapon and engine specifications, lists of foodstuff, quarantine procedures, safety datasheets, crew medical records and more inspections, the Captain and I have met twice in the past three weeks. We correspond by PADDs.  
Fine by me.

And now can Janeway go through the last hurdle? Of course, she can. It's only protocols. She is the queen of protocols.

Two minutes.  
The whole ship falls silent, the engines shutting down, internal comms offline. The only sounds to be heard are the murmur of the environmental controls. We are dead in space, waiting at the Kjeas border for the final ritual.

Going around the Borg territory would have lengthened our journey by a few months. That was unacceptable to a certain Captain who cannot see that her obsession in getting us home no matter what is killing this ship. The years of travelling have taken their toll. We have lost too many people and Voyager itself is hardly the shiny new starship it once was. B'Elanna is good but even she is not able to replace vital components that only a Federation starbase can provide. The truth is, we will all be killed or dead of old age before we even see the galaxy core on our long range sensors.

It is only the fear of what a mutiny would do to the crew that compels me to continue to obey an obsessed woman who does not listen to her First Officer. She is the Captain, as I recall saying once. During my shifts, I carry out her direct orders. In my time off, I make sure we are not alone in the same room.  
I am just waiting for the inevitable implosion.

One minute.  
She digs her heels into the hard floor in front of her command chair as if seeking strength from the bridge steel underneath, one hand behind her back. She'll be the only one standing when the Kjeas Prime Minister is …

… on screen now.

I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the PM's face, as is their rule. All on the bridge do the same. We cannot avert our eyes or move the slightest while they speak.

The universal translators are off. The Prime Minister and the Captain are now using the old language of the Kjeas ancestors, the only one that is allowed to be uttered during the last phase of negotiation between Kjeas and non-Kjeas. The protocols are detailed, exacting and do not allow any deviation. This is an advantage as the phrases are locked in and can be learnt by heart as it were. The Captain has memorised the words and cadences over several days and now speaks to the PM without any understanding of what she is saying.

I continue to fix my gaze on the Kjeas nose. He speaks, then it's her turn, next him again. The language is surprisingly melodious: the syllables are soft, almost velvety, tilting sentences handed gently from one speaker to the other across the only working comms system. The silences are as important as the words, pauses that herald a different tone, perhaps an entire new chapter. For all we know, it could be the Kjeas creation story that they are reciting.  
The avalanche of words is like a song. That something of such beauty originated from these people is a wonder.

I hear a soft plop against the floor. We've had twelve bridge inspections. I can't believe B'Elanna would miss a conduit leak.  
Another plop. I let my peripheral vision take over while still focusing on the screen in front of me, a trick I learnt from spending too much time on sniper duty in the Maquis. You catch movement much better by not looking directly at its possible source.  
I can't see anything out of the ordinary. The ceiling is clear. The brown coolant would show if it was dripping. B'Elanna may still escape with a reprimand and double shifts for a week.

My mind switches off.

It took us a month to navigate the lower ranks of their border force, distributing bribes while learning their protocols. Little by little, we got closer to the top echelons but I still don't know why Voyager attracted the Prime Minister's attention. Maybe he was bored. Maybe our arrival coincided with another of their political upheavals and he wanted to impress his troops by showing up at the border station.

Another drip. The sound comes from Paris' way but I think it is from somewhere closer than his console. I don't understand what it can be if not a ceiling pipe but I still can't see anything wrong.  
The sound is changing as if the drops are forming a small puddle now. They are getting a bit faster too. It's like water torture. I force air through my ears and the noise disappears.

I dread what the Captain will do if the Kjeas don't allow us passage. She's made it clear that going around the Borg territory is not an option, but the Federation nemesis do not trade and they have no ego. No doubt the Captain will present us with a Starfleet protocol or two on how to handle them. She has one for every situation, every relationship.  
Alien or otherwise.

The Prime Minister relaxes his stance ever so slightly and is saying something I don't quite catch. The translators come back online erratically and I just hear a few words ... _unfortunate to be caught up … attempt … Secretary_ … Then the words we've been waiting for four long weeks to hear. _Make fast track, Captain.  
_ With these last words, the Kjeas disappears from our screen and the external comms line cuts off. Tom and Harry are hitting the air with their fists. I shut my eyes, the PM nostrils still imprinted on my retinas.

Voices from sickbay, the cargo bay and engineering flood my console. I turn everybody off but for B'Elanna, who says that the engines are back online. The EMH is gesticulating on my screen but I ignore him. Harry announces that the Kjeas border ships are moving off and Tom has a new route entered in his navigation console. We will shave a few months off our journey home and avoid the Borg. Despite my pessimism, I have to hand it to the Captain. She made the right call.

"Captain?" Tom asks. His grin disappears when she does not respond. I rise from my seat: "Good to go, Lieutenant. Impulse only."  
The ship surges ahead. It feels good to feel Voyager alive under our feet again.

The Captain turns towards me, her face blank. I want her to show some sort of emotion. The crew deserves better than the empty look she is giving me. It has been weeks of hell for them. A swell of anger surges in me as she remains silent. What damn Starfleet rule have we breached this time?  
I stare at her and for a split second, somebody else looks back at me from behind unyielding, icy blue eyes. What does she want from me? Congratulations? An apology? I feel embarrassed by her faux pas and my gaze slides off to a point above her, as I wait for an order that does not come.

All the strands of happenstance converge on that one moment when she crumples in a pool of blood just in front of me.

You see, it's all about protocols and rules.

Under Kjeas protocols, only the Captain could represent Voyager. She couldn't delegate or ask for a delay. There could be no deviation from their rigid rules, no attenuating circumstances, whatsoever. We said we understood. We really thought we did but we were just pawns in the Kjeas power struggle, played by a hierarchy without parallel for its internal savagery. The only way for a Kjeas to climb up the ladder is to get rid of their superior, by whatever means necessary and unconstrained rivalry is the norm at all political levels. Anything goes.

At the end of her meeting with the Under Secretary, the Captain received the signed document that allowed us official passage and got ready to come back to Voyager for the final ritual. Then there was an explosion that killed half of the Kjeas representatives, including the second in line herself. A neat way for the Prime Minister to eliminate the competition.  
In the mayhem that followed, the Captain kept hold of the permit, found her way back to the shuttle, used a dermal regenerator on her face and hands, patched up the rest of her injuries as best as she could, replicated a new uniform and appeared on the bridge, six minutes before the final ceremony with the Kjeas Prime Minister.

I am in sickbay now, listening to the life support equipment. I should go and talk to Tuvok. There must be a Starfleet protocol to follow because it will surely be my turn soon to give the orders.

Instead, I wait for her.


End file.
